'Vera Stark' actress Kami Rushell Smith is something special

Thursday

Mar 28, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 28, 2013 at 4:49 AM

Kami Rushell Smith, a 27-year-old Dorchester actress, plays the title role in the Lyric Stage Company’s production of "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark," a character inspired by Theresa Harris, a promising young African-American actress with scene-stealing beauty and talent. It plays March 29 to April 27.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage found the inspiration for her new play, "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark," while watching an old 1933 Warner Brothers movie called "Baby Face." A young Barbara Stanwyck was giving a compelling performance as a young woman who relies on her sex appeal to succeed, but Nottage couldn’t take her eyes off a luminous supporting actress named Theresa Harris.

I know the feeling. Two years ago I was sitting in a Watertown theater watching Cheo Bourne give a beguiling performance as the lead character in the New Repertory Theatre’s terrific production of "Passing Strange." But I couldn’t take my eyes off Kami Rushell Smith. Even in a supporting role, she conveyed that intangible quality – that spark – that can bewitch an audience.

Now those two paths cross. Smith, a 27-year-old Dorchester actress, plays the title role in the Lyric Stage Company’s production of "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark," a character inspired by Theresa Harris, a promising young African-American actress with scene-stealing beauty and talent. It plays March 29 to April 27.

"I’m really excited about it," says Smith, who asked to read from "Vera Stark" when she went to the Lyric’s open audition in the fall. "I’d read the play, and it resonated with me so much as an actor of color. The woman has been fighting so long and hard to do what she loves and to play roles that she feels good about. I identified with that. I think a lot about which roles I’m interested in doing and what I want my acting career to look like."

In the play, Vera is an aspiring actress, who, as a "day job," works for a movie star who’s having her own struggles with Hollywood. The two women end up getting cast in the same Southern-set Hollywood epic. The play chronicles Vera’s battles against a Hollywood system that has a hard time envisioning black actresses as anything other than maids.

The entertainment industry has certainly come a long way in its portrayal of African Americans, but maybe it hasn’t come quite as far as we think. Smith says there have been African-American roles that she didn’t take – or, more often, didn’t even audition for – because she was uncomfortable with the image they portrayed.

"Of course the field has opened up by leaps and bounds [since ‘Baby Face’]," she says, citing actresses such as Angela Bassett who have helped push beyond the stereotypes. "But there are still a lot of slave and prostitute roles. You don’t want to be pigeonholed into those roles, even though they may be historical or factually correct. As an actor, you have to look at a role and ask if this character has been created for a good reason, or is it gratuitous."

Smith admits she’s had fun "digging my teeth into" the old Hollywood style of acting. There’s a film-within-the-play that shows Vera’s work in a "Gone with the Wind"-type movie. As we spoke, Smith had just finished shooting the scene in the Charles Street Inn.

"The play is really smart, but we’re also learning how funny it is," says Smith. "It’s human and normal, but it’s also a lot of fun. It’s a really interesting mix of comedy and drama. Parts of it are like a screwball comedy. But then other parts really hit you in the gut. They’re heart-breaking."

Smith faces that old acting challenge of aging. The play follows Vera’s life and career from the 1930s to the 1970s, so Smith must age about 40 years onstage.

Smith grew up in Mississippi, but she came to Boston to study at the Boston Conservatory. Since graduating, she’s become attached to the Boston theater community, describing it as "competitive, but not cut-throat. It’s a real community, not a bunch of individuals. It’s an environment where others want you to succeed."

And she appreciates the acting jobs she’s been offered here.

"I’ve personally been very lucky in Boston to be employed pretty consistently. And I’ve been really impressed," she says. The opportunities for an African-American actress are "growing more and more. I recently performed in another play by a playwright of color. And then I got a role as a result of color-blind casting. That’s a small example of the track that Boston is on. I’ll be excited to watch it flourish and grow."

So would Theresa Harris. The current Boston theater scene is probably a step toward the kind of acting opportunities that she dreamed of while wrestling with a restrictive studio system that ensured the talented Harris would be little more than a Hollywood footnote.

"I watch clips of Theresa Harris," says Smith, who has also seen "Baby Face." "She had such a presence on screen. You can’t take your eyes off her. I wonder what would have happened if she had had the opportunity to play some amazing roles."